48 



Bird- Lore 



trti Eore 



A Bi-monthly Maeazir.e 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Contributing Editor. MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



Published by D. APPLETON & CO. 



Vol. XIII Published February 1.1911 No. 1 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 



Price in the United States, Canada and Mexico twenty cents 

 a number, one dollar a year, postage paid. 



COPYRIGHTED. I9U, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto : 

 A Bird in the Busk is IVorih Two in the Hand 



A WORD of explanation is due those 

 contributors to the Christmas Census 

 whose data were received too late for in- 

 sertion among those published. To few 

 compositors, we imagine, is given a more 

 difficult task than the putting in type of 

 the thousands of unfamiliar names con- 

 tained in the Census, from written MS. 

 The work cannot be hurried, and this fact, 

 in connection with the desirability of 

 placing the Censuses in a geographical 

 sequence, which cannot be disturbed after 

 it has reached the page-proof stage, has 

 made it impossible for us to use many in- 

 teresting records. As it is, the published 

 reports number slightly over 200, or thirty- 

 three per cent more than was contained 

 in the Census of 1909. 



The space required by the Census, in 

 spite of a material increase in the size of 

 this issue, has forced us to omit the list of 

 Advisory Councilors, which usually ap- 

 pears in the first number of each volume 

 of Bird-Lore, as well as a number of 

 timely seasonal notes. Among the latter 

 are several records of the occurrence of the 

 Evening Grosbeak which should be re- 

 ferred to briefly here, although their 

 publication in detail must be deferred 

 until the succeeding issue. To give merely 

 numbers, names and dates, Evening Gros- 

 beaks have been reported to us as follows: 

 Three at Naples, Maine, November 10, 

 1910, by Adeline WilHs ; eight at Litch- 

 field, Connecticut, January 13, 1911, by 

 Sarah W. Adam ; five at Port Chester, 



N. Y., January 9, 1911, by Cecil Spof- 

 ford ; one at Forest Hill Park, Brooklyn, 

 January 8, 1911, by Mary W. Peckham ; 

 eight at Andover, Sussex Co., New 

 Jersey, December 13, 1910, by Blanche 

 Hill; "twelve or fifteen" at Newton, Sussex 

 Co., New Jersey, January 6, 191 1, by 

 Mary F. Kanouse. 



The publication of these records raises 

 the ever-open question as to the desira- 

 bility of adding to the literature of orni- 

 thology observations which cannot be of 

 real value when any doubt exists of the 

 identity of the bird in question. Bird- 

 Lore has always discouraged the publica- 

 tion of unusual 'records of occurrence' 

 based only on field identification, never- 

 theless, every case of this kind must be 

 decided on its merits. The degree of prob- 

 ability, possibility of confusion with 

 other species, experience of the observer, 

 length of time and distance at which the 

 bird was seen, whether seen by more than 

 one person, and other attending circum- 

 stances, must be taken into account when 

 deciding whether a given observation is 

 sufficiently satisfactory to be made public. 



Almost daily the editor receives 'records 

 of occurrence' which, without for a moment 

 doubting the good faith of their author, 

 it would, in his opinion, be unwise to 

 publish. Their very improbability makes 

 it absolutely essential that they should 

 be founded upon the incontrovertible evi- 

 dence of specimens, and lacking this it is 

 better that they should never see the light. 



Let us cite, in proof, the incredulity, to 

 use no stronger term, with which the 

 publication, by Dr. W J McGee of a rec- 

 ord of the breeding of the Passenger 

 Pigeon {Ectopistes migratorius) ■ in south- 

 ern Arizona ("Science, "Dec. 30, 1910, p. 

 958) has been received. Dr. McGee's 

 observations are presented with surpris- 

 ing minuteness of detail; he even states 

 that an empty larder caused the killing of 

 ' some thirty of the pigeons" for food. 

 Nevertheless, the elements of improb- 

 ability and error in identification are here 

 so great that his article is to be considered 

 rather as an illustration of how even a 

 trained observer may err than as a contribu- 

 tion to the history of the Passenger Pigeon. 



